Vote for collective leadership shows Your Party are ‘doing politics differently’ – UK politics live

Spokesperson says move – seen as a victory for Zarah Sultana – shows organisation is ‘a truly member-led party’

Kemi Badenoch has reiterated her calls for the chancellor to resign on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, after accusing Rachel Reeves of breaking promises not to raise taxes.

In this year’s budget, Reeves froze tax thresholds for three years longer than previously planned, meaning that as wages rise more people will have to start paying income tax.

The chancellor called an emergency press conference telling everyone about how terrible the state of the finances were and now we have seen that the OBR had told her the complete opposite. She was raising taxes to pay for welfare.

The only thing that was unfunded was the welfare payments which she has made and she’s doing it on the backs of a lot of people out there who are working very hard and getting poorer. And because of that, I believe she should resign.

The shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, has written to the FCA (the Financial Conduct Authority). Hopefully there will be an investigation, because it looks like what she was doing was trying to pitch-roll her budget – tell everyone how awful it would be and then they wouldn’t be as upset when she finally announced it – and still sneak in those tax rises to pay for welfare. That’s not how we should be running this process.

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Death toll rises to 146 in Hong Kong apartment fire: “A wake-up call for everyone” – CBS News

  1. Death toll rises to 146 in Hong Kong apartment fire: "A wake-up call for everyone"  CBS News
  2. Hong Kong fire death toll rises to 146 as thousands pay respects  BBC
  3. Mourners flock to site of deadly Hong Kong blaze as Beijing warns against protests  Reuters
  4. Anger simmers over Hong Kong deadly blaze as Beijing warns against 'disruption'  CNBC
  5. Hong Kong’s Migrant Domestic Workers Mourn Their Losses in Deadly Fire  The New York Times
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Benjamin Netanyahu asks Israel’s president for pardon in corruption case

Request is submitted weeks after Donald Trump called on Isaac Herzog to pardon Israeli prime minister

Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Israel’s president for a pardon for bribery and fraud charges and an end to a five-year corruption trial, arguing that it would be in the “public interest”.

Isaac Herzog’s office acknowledged receipt of the 111-page submission from the prime minister’s lawyer, and said it had been passed on to the pardons department in the ministry of justice. The president’s legal adviser would also formulate an opinion before Herzog made a decision, it added.

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Fears for UK security as Foreign Office moves to scrap unit on conflict and refugee crises

MPs warn axing FCDO’s migration and conflict directorate amid staff cuts risks undermining peace work and expertise

The Foreign Office has been warned that a plan to axe its dedicated unit on emerging conflicts and refugee crises is a “real error” that “undermines UK security” as the department grapples with swingeing cuts.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) migration and conflict directorate, which employs about 100 civil servants, is being abolished at the end of this year and its work subsumed by the rest of the department.

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EPA urged to ban spraying of antibiotics on US food crops amid resistance fears

Use of 8m pounds of antibiotics and antifungals a year leads to superbugs and damages human health, lawsuit claims

A new legal petition filed by a dozen public health and farm worker groups demands the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stop allowing farms to spray antibiotics on food crops in the US because they are probably causing superbugs to flourish and sickening farm workers.

The agricultural industry sprays about 8m pounds of antibiotic and antifungal pesticides on US food crops annually, many of which are banned in other countries.

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Is gen Z’s love of fried chicken pushing Britain to ‘peak pizza’?

Competition intensifies as former chief of Domino’s says days of ‘massive growth’ are over

Pizza has become ubiquitous on British dinner plates, with chains such as Pizza Express, Franco Manca, Domino’s and Goodfella’s dominating the market – but is its popularity starting to cool?

Domino’s Pizza Group announced this week that its chief executive of two years had stepped down with immediate effect, less than two weeks after he appeared to suggest the UK may be approaching “peak pizza”.

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Ukrainian and US officials to meet in Florida to discuss proposals to end Russia’s war

Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner expected to meet Kyiv delegation, after another weekend of deadly Russian attacks in Ukraine

Ukrainian negotiators are preparing to meet US officials in Florida to thrash out details of Washington’s proposed framework to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, as Kyiv faces pressure on military and political fronts.

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, are expected to sit down with a Ukrainian delegation on Sunday before planned US talks this week in Moscow with Vladimir Putin.

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